Scrum is an assembly line for developers not a cancer

A few months ago I read a blog post with the title "Scrum is a cancer", and every morning at 9 when our scrum starts I think about that post. I say what I have to say painfully, totally aware that no one actually listens.

So this got me thinking, “What happened”? I still don't think "Scrum is a cancer". I just think we, developers, or/and the managers gave up on it. Now there is a wrong perception that scrum is an assembly line for developers.

At least management thinks of Scrum as an assembly line for developers. Because most project managers don't want to be bothered about the details of how things work. Even worse, about what needs to be built?

However, things blow up when something needs to be packed and delivered at the end of the “assembly line”. This starts with the misconception that developers are tiny cogs in whatever big factory or machine the management perceives to be running. But unlike a worker in assembly lines, developers make a lot of tiny decisions daily. Some of them have the potential to stop the whole show.

We developers have let the idea of Scrum down too. Because when developers are treated like factory cogs, we don't fight back. Most dev leads just don’t have it in them or don’t care enough to be in that discussion.

Hence, unlike assembly lines in a factory that 10Xed productivity and profits, scrums just slow everyone to the same level. Scrum has to be treated like a short meeting to identify critical blockers in a critical path of the project schedule and that is that. PM, Scrum master, or devs must know what needs to be developed, and what has already been developed. And if possible just a bit of the how before sprint planning.

I believe these preconditions will make Scrum less of the assembly line that it has become and more of a cooperative environment.